JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL INSTITUTION OF CORNWALL. 



No. VII. APKIL. 1867. 



I. — The Bishopric of Cornwall. — Saxon Period. 

 By the Rev, John Carne, M.A., Vicar of Meriher. 



Presented at the Autumn Meeting, November 15, 1866. 



THE origin of the ancient Bishopric of Cornwall is involved in 

 much obscurity. There seems little doubt that the province 

 formed a separate See in very early times in communion with the 

 ancient British Church ; but it is only after the subjugation of 

 Cornwall by King Athels^n that some light begins to dawn upon 

 the history of the Bishopric. And even then we have little more 

 to guide us than a few brief notices and occasional allusions, which 

 may be found preserved in contemporary records, or scattered over 

 the pages of ancient chroniclers. Passages or facts relating to the 

 See are to be met with in the Welsh Records, in the Manumissions 

 written upon the Bodmin Gospels, in the Saxon Chronicle, in the 

 Charters of Sir W. Dugdale's Monasticon, of Kemble's Codex 

 Diplomaticus, and of Thorpe's Diplomatarium Angiicum, and in 

 the works of Florence of Worcester, William of Malmesbury, 

 Roger de Hoveden, Roger of Wendover, Matthew of Westminster, 

 and William of Worcester. The more modern authorities are 

 Leland, Sir Henry Spelman, Bishop Godwin, Archbishop Usher, 



